On March 7, West Texas A&M University faculty and students presented their research from the past year at the annual Faculty Research Poster Session.
In the Cornette Library, the research was put on display for interested parties on campus to go learn. Topics varied from literature to sciences to social issues.
“My research specifically looks at the effectiveness of crisis intervention teams or CITs and police departments,” Allan Baltazar, graduate student and presenter, said. “It’s an important body of literature to look at because, first and foremost, police officers are the frontline personnel to deal with mental health crises in their specific community. The current strategy we have right now is the implementation of CITs. Simply a collaboration between mental health professionals, police officers and community members.”
A professor of English presented her research on the topic of black journalism and its struggle to be taken seriously.
“In the summer of 2023, I went to the Schomburg Center; it is a special collection within the New York Public Library,” Dr. Rebecca Weir, professor of English and presenter, said. “I was researching African American comic artists in the years between 1934 and 1948. Looking at Jay Jackson: he was a nationally syndicated artist reporting on the rise of fascism and state-backed white supremacy in Europe, both in Italy with Mussolini and Germany with Hitler. They were in the black press. More attuned to the dangers of white supremacy politicized.”
If students are looking to attend law school following their time at WT, this student’s research has them covered.
“It’s applied research; I did interviews with five different people,” Riley Moore, senior and presenter, said. “A couple of them were law students, a couple of them were lawyers in legal fields, and then one student like myself, I got her perspective. I aggregated all of their insights into four main guides. Overarching how to get into law school, how to conquer the LSAT, how to stand out as a candidate, and the importance of having your own path. When I looked for content for going to law school, I wanted something more casual and informal from someone going through the same thing. So that’s why peer-driven is a big emphasis.”
Research could be on any number of topics. Science and business were married in this student’s panel.
“So, my experiment is the frequency’s effect on the fermentation process,” Roy Thomason, senior and presenter, said. “If I was to summarize it in a specific sentence, it would be how frequencies affect the cellular metabolism of the cells during fermentation. The original experiment was done with brewers yeast and alcohol fermentation of beer. We took that, found a significant increase in fermentation rate and thought, can we isolate these frequencies in order to increase the fermentation rate? And now that we have this, can brewers use this to increase their profit margins on a large scale?”
